Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

writer/artist/educator

https://www.lillianyvonnebertram.com/

THE BODY DEFORMED BY TIDAL FORCES

Darkness still here, hunkered against the trees.

Spring so uneasy this year.

No matter morning’s boundary culling our bodies,

another romantic passage assaults us!

O limp future centered on this body!

In the model solar system, planets suspend & twirl

as if from a spider’s whirl.

The quantum in backpedal, in decline, spring so ungripping

this year. Bored mouth. Bored fingers.

The umpteenth day/night running like such—

truly, truly—this troubling with physics!

Not still winter, not yet anything.

O thuggish awakening.

All planets but this one were named after gods.

Artist Statement

“My writing is wide-ranging and concerns the malleability of language and forms.

I am interested in the intersections of the innovative and experimental with aspects race, gender, and the more-than-human world. My work is ground in inquiry, ways of knowing, and how language can (and cannot) communicate experiences felt in body and mind. Even at its most cerebral my work is centered in notions of embodiment and the lived experience of seeing and being seen.

My practice and process includes photographic and video work and mixed media composition. Current projects include computational poetics and emerging technologies, spell-casting, and collaborative writing.”

University of Utah MFA, PHD// University of Illinois, MFA//Carnegie Mellon University, BA

Professional

  • Assistant Professor in the Department of English at UMass Boston
  • MFA Creative Writing Program, Boston Ma. 
  • Director of the Chautauqua Institution Writers’ Festival, New York

Past Affiliations

  • St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY.
  • Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY.
  • Williams College, Williamstown, Ma.

Bibliography

Awards

  • 2017 Harvard University Woodberry Poetry Room Creative Grant
  • 2016 Narrative Magazine Poetry Award
  • 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship
  • 2010 Benjamin Saltman Award

Additional Links